In a Winnipeg Sun article entitled: "Pre is fab: Latest smartphone does it all elegantly" Steve Tilley gives quite a good (in my opinion) review of the Palm Pre which just recently became available here in Canada. Steve says "The Palm Pre smartphone is an attractive alternative to a BlackBerry or iPhone" and, in his 'verdict' at the end of the article, warns that "the Pre could cause gadget love at first sight".
The folks who ushered hand-held organizers into the collective consciousness have come a long way, baby. Heck, I remember when we used to call these things Palm Pilots.
-={snip}=-
It's the latest phone to be saddled with that tiresome "iPhone killer" label, but it's also one of the few that really can stand up to Apple's beloved little slab.
A chunky, squat black number, the Pre (pronounced "pree" and not "pray") lands in the crowded uber-phone market with a few secret weapons. One, it combines a very sharp iPhone-like touchscreen with a surprisingly functional BlackBerry-like keyboard, revealed by sliding the screen up. Best of both worlds right there, eh wot?
And two, it's a built-from-the-ground-up marriage of hi-tech silicon guts and cool, intuitive software. From e-mail to web browsing to memos to maps, the Pre does everything you'd expect a high-end 3G smartphone to do, and it does it with what can only be described as elegant grace.
-={snip}=-
When using the Pre, I felt like the folks at Palm didn't just sit down and cobble together a device with a touch-screen and a handy slide-out keyboard. It feels like they reverse-engineered the thing from the perspective of you, the user, to make it easy and fun to use. And it's even pretty decent at making phone calls.
-={snip}=-
Despite its faults, the Pre is an elegant device that doesn't try to mimic an iPhone or a BlackBerry, even though {it} offers some of the best features of each. It reminds me of how I felt the first time I used a Palm Pilot, way back in the day: An exciting, albeit not entirely perfect, glimpse at the future of gadgetry.
But hey, the Palm Pilot evolved, and so will the Pre. Stay tuned.
-={snip}=-
Verdict: While it has a few flaws and the battery life is mediocre, the Pre is packed with features that make it an attractive alternative to a BlackBerry or iPhone. And if you've never used either of those devices before, the Pre could cause gadget love at first sight.
Be sure to follow the link above (
or this one) to read the whole article. It's definitely worth your time.
I have a couple of personal comments. Steve states that the Pre has an "iPhone-like touchscreen" -- when, because the Palm Pilot was the first commercially successful PDA with a touchscreen, it should say the iPhone has an improved Palm-like touchscreen. He also says that it includes a "surprisingly functional Blackberry-like keyboard", yet that style of keyboard was pioneered by the Treo smartphone, again made by Palm. In fact, it is widely acknowledged that RIM's Blackberry's (and most other PDAs for that matter) "acquired" their keyboards by openly emulating the Palm Treo.
However, all those personal nit-picky points aside {grin}, the review is a good one and well worth reading in it's entirety.
Posts
